Till Death Do Us Part
by AuronLu
Summary: Six years into the Eternal Calm, all is not well in Spira. Wakka is gone, and Lulu scoffs at rumors that he was slain by Sin. Now she may have to sacrifice herself to avenge him and to protect all those she holds dear this side of the Farplane.
1. Sin Unrepentant

_A/N: This story has major spoilers to FFX and gives away a few things from the sequel. However, I'm drawing more on the characters, storyline, and style of FFX, so just be aware that there are some X-2 spoilers._

* * *

"The sea! The sea!"

"Sin!" came an anguished cry among the other shouts of the sailors.

Lulu rooted herself like a summoner's statue as the deck heaved and pitched beneath them. One arm wrapped tightly around a spar; her other arm anchored Vidina firmly against her skirts. A barrage of cold seawater broke across the bulwark, and she twisted around to shield the boy. The fiendish force of the water was terrifying, all the more so because she knew just what it could do- was doing right now. Vidina never made a sound, even when her grip began to slip, even when a hulking shape loomed out of the roaring rush of water and flung dark arms around both of them...

"Kimahri, what's out there?" Lulu snapped as the water subsided. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a sailor hunched behind the stern-mounted cannon. Frothy water obscured whatever was churning the waves beyond. A fleeting glimpse of something dark and solid beneath the surface reminded her alarmingly of their old foe.

It could _not_ be Sin. It could not. Never mind that Wakka had not returned from a tournament two years ago, and it was said that the Aurochs' ship had been taken by the ancient terror of the deep. Lulu had mourned him and scorned sailors' yarns and refused to fear. Since then, despite scattered rumors and against Yuna's advice, she had shown Vidina much of Spira. He should know all he could of their world, all the more so if it was turning dangerous once again. Knowledge was her oldest weapon.

"Machina," the Ronso rumbled beside her, retrieving his spear from the rigging where he had jammed it. "Kimahri hear engines."

She tensed. "Raiders. So that's the answer."

"Al Bhed?" the boy asked softly, arms still wrapped tightly around her legs.

"No, although they may wear masks. Don't be afraid, sweetling; we won't let them hurt you."

The sailor crouched behind the cannon gave a cry, staggering backwards and pressing his hands against his face. Catapulting out of the waves like leaping fish, a gang of steel-gray figures encased in rubber suits overleapt the gunwale and landed on both sides of the dying sailor. All wore masks or goggles. The tube-shaped objects they carried were clearly some kind of weapon.

"Top deck," Kimahri said abruptly, jerking his spear towards the steep staircase, almost a ladder, leading to the small railed observation deck perched over the ship's cabin.

Lulu nodded. She wished that she could take Vidina below, but if anything happened to the hull...

Banishing that thought from her mind, she dashed towards the stairs, scooping the slight child in her arms and concealing him as well as she could with her sleeves. He clung desperately to her braids. More and more suited figures were bursting onto the starboard deck. She drove them back with a curse and a blast of water as forceful as the one that had drenched her a moment ago. Vidina whimpered as a rattle of gunfire broke out behind them, but Kimahri was following, shielding them as they fled. Yells and screams broke out below decks as they flung themselves over the top of the stairs. Lulu raced to the mast, gesturing for Vidina to hide behind it. Then she wheeled, bracing her back against it. Kimahri had reached the deck on their heels and was crouched at the head of the stairs, lying in wait for anyone trying to climb up after them. Blood was dripping onto the deck beneath him, but for the moment the blue-furred warrior seemed as steady as ever.

"Vidina," Lulu said, "Kimahri and I are going to have to kill some bad men. I need you to be brave for a little while. Hide behind me, and do not make a sound. Understood?"

"Yes, Mama." Oh, bless him, he was trying to imitate her icy, flat tones, swallowing his terror. _He should not have to see this._ The smoldering rage that fueled her most dangerous magic flared up, and she felt a familiar tingling in her hands as she drew herself to her full height, poised to cast.

Kimahri suddenly swung his spear out and down. Below their line of sight, there was a cry and a thudding fall. Gathering her hands together, the sorceress spat a few words. A throbbing green aura began to leap between her fingers. She flung the wobbling green sphere of energy out and away, over the railing. It spread as it fell, diffusing into a sickly fog.

The problem with Bio was that it took time to act. It was one of the few wide-area spells Lulu possessed that would neither damage the ship nor set it ablaze. Also, there was a good chance that they would be able to revive any sailors unfortunate enough to breathe the vapors. The sounds of struggle, fighting, and pandemonium began to subside almost at once. Lulu longed to peer over the railing and come to the aid of the crew and passengers, but her son's safety outweighed all other concerns.

Kimahri lurched backwards as another spatter of darts came flying at his face, some of them hammering the underside of the boards beneath their feet. Lulu raised her hand. An arc of lightning flashed over the Ronso's head, bending downwards like a rainbow, but she could not tell whether the bolt had found a mark.

The metallic sound of a commsphere broadcast rang out over the chaos. "Lulu of Besaid. Surrender at once, or we shall destroy this vessel."

Kimahri growled and started towards the steps.

"Kimahri!" Lulu snapped. The Ronso froze reluctantly, lips peeled back from his teeth in a snarl.

"The _S.S. Winno_ lies on the ocean floor," the harsh voice continued. "Do you wish to join her? Will you condemn all the souls on this ship?"

A small, cold hand crept over Lulu's clenched fist. The sorceress drew a shuddering breath, biting back the bile of mounting fury that might well crack the ship apart without the aid of machina if her control frayed. She turned and sank to her knees, hugging Vidina close so that he would not see her face. The boy had slipped around the mast despite her orders. Although he still made no sound, his trembling cut her more deeply than any fiend had ever gored her in battle. Beneath the saltwater dripping down from his bedraggled bangs, he was weeping silently. She cuddled him, stroking his hair; her hands had always expressed love or anger more eloquently than words.

"Sinspawn!" the loudspeaker crackled. "Return to base." The ferry began to shudder ominously, pounded from below. Another huge wave crashed over the bow, sweeping at least one of the crew overboard, to judge by the cries.

"I've got to go." The words forced themselves between her teeth. The Ronso rumbled warningly behind her. Vidina shook his head, his whole body, squirming in her arms.

"Sweetling." Lulu kissed her son's forehead once, twice. "Kimahri and I will _never_ let them hurt you. I promise. But I must go, or I won't be able to protect you. Kimahri will guard you until I return. I love you, Vidina. Remember it."

"No!" His sobs against her shoulder muffled his words. "No! NO!"

The ship heaved again, and again Kimahri's encircling grip kept them from sliding across the quivering deck.

"E muji oui," she whispered in the boy's ear, slipping her necklace of blue beads around his neck. "Kimahri. Take Vidina. _Now._"

The Ronso shifted slightly to let her stand, releasing her and gently prying the weeping child loose from her skirts with his paws. Old comrades shared a meaningful glance. Then Lulu staggered across the deck, voice shrill and harsh to her ears as she called out a phrase akin to blasphemy in her personal religion. "I surrender! Release this vessel!"

She halted at the top of the steps, dumbfounded. Jutting out of the churning waves was a huge gray fin, pitted and scarred and covered with - no, no, it was barnacles and bits of dead reef, and what the voice had called Sinspawn were simply the gray-suited divers, swarming back into pockets and portholes in the underwater vessel's metal skin.

"I surrender!" she shouted again, raising her hands and measuring the distance to the fin with narrowed eyes. "I-"

A stinging pain struck her in the shoulder. Suddenly Lulu could not make a sound. She glanced down, spotting the blank facemask of the man who had shot her, kneeling at the foot of the stairs next to Kimahri's most recent victim. Then the ship, the sea, even the sky began to shimmer and recede like the vanished Fayth. Vidina's wail was the last thing she heard as her knees gave way and she toppled headfirst down the steps.


	2. Belly of the Beast

It might not have been Sin, but the dark, humid, murky cabin where Lulu found herself when she came groggily awake felt like the constricting maw of some vast sea creature. Her drug-hazed senses dimly registered the suffocating weight of water pressing in on the hull from all sides, adding to the queasy freefall vibration of the deck. Chilled, soaked, and nursing several bruises whose origin she could not recall, the mage surveyed her surroundings through slitted eyes, sizing up dismal odds.

Metal fetters held her hands clipped behind her to a rectangular air duct. Rivets were digging into her back. The irregular room around her was crammed with bulkheads, consoles, and panels whose unshielded wiring and mismatched materials suggested a far more makeshift craft than the _Jecht_ or _Celsius_. Her senses were nearly overwhelmed by the stomach-churning odors of sweat, rubber, and engine oil mingled with the sedative and ship's motion.

Gradually Lulu sorted out what she was seeing. The crew, reduced to mere silhouettes by the meager lighting of a few blue ceiling panels and the glow of the ship's controls, were a ragtag bunch from all over Spira, decked in patched warrior monks' uniforms, Al Bhed jumpsuits, or the baggy trousers and suspenders of islanders. One erect figure standing behind the sailors hunched over their consoles even bore the spiked tonsure of a Guado. His slow drawl snapped her sluggish thoughts back to icy clarity:

"Prepare to fire."

"Wait." Her voice was a faint croak, but apparently the silence serum was starting to wear off. Sinking into the ocean's depths and suffocating on the stench of her incinerated victims was not how she had planned to end this voyage, but at least there were a few dear souls already waiting for her on the far shore. Numbly Lulu struggled to find the embers of _firaga_.

One of the crew, a green-eyed woman with Al Bhed tattoos on her cheeks, hopped up and hurried over, drawing a knife. "One spell," the woman snapped, "One word of incantation, and we slit your vocal chords. Understood?"

Lulu clenched her teeth as the blade was set against her skin. "You said you'd--"

Her assailant snorted. "We lied. Don't waste your breath."

"Destroy that ship, and you're no closer to finding Yuna." The sorceress struggled to speak quickly and clearly.

"Hold." The captain turned towards her, clasping his long hands over his chest and addressing her with an unctuous bow. "Lady Lulu, I beg your pardon; there has not been time for introductions. Perhaps later. But why in Spira do you think we care about the High Summoner? It's you we want."

Feeling like a traitor, although she knew that Yuna would urge her to use any means necessary to protect others, the mage spoke haughtily. "Not likely. I do not know your game, but Yuna is far more likely to come looking for me if you leave eyewitnesses."

"Hmmmmm." The captain exchanged a calculating glance with the woman holding the knife, and Lulu allowed herself a small glimmer of hope that she had guessed correctly. "You are too modest, milady. Your powers will add considerable authenticity to our humble operation."

"Unless you cut my throat." Her nails scraped metal as she tested the straps pinning her arms. "And that's exactly what you'll have to do. My husband went down on the _Winno_. Innocent lives are the only reason I can think of for sparing yours. Kill them and die."

"Oh, very well." The captain gestured to one of the sailors huddled testily over his controls. "Set course for Baaj." He flicked a hand back towards the Al Bhed guard. "Silence her."

Faster than Lulu could spit out a spell, the blond woman reversed the knife and scored her throat with lizards' teeth set in the pommel. The mage gagged mutely. _Not again!_ Gesture, sound: she needed so little to be lethal, but without them she was as powerless as an abandoned doll. Still, she refused to allow enemies to see a glimpse of her panic. Vidina and Kimahri were safe: let that be a talisman against unbecoming fear. Squeezing her eyes shut to block out curious stares and smirks, the mage wrestled with nausea and strained her ears to sift the crew's muttered conversations for any scrap of information.

She was boxed in for now. But every Cloister of Trials must have an exit.

* * *

- 

Sun on bare skin, wind in streaming hair, the gentle purr of the ship's hull beneath one's shoulderblades -- could life possibly be more perfect? Except, of course, for the maddening, steady plunk of a blitzball slamming into the nearby bulkhead. Luckily, Yuna could put up with almost any amount of Tidus' fidgeting. Lulu had declared some time ago that it was a good thing that he had married a saint. A pity that poor Wakka...

"Hey," Yuna interrupted her own thoughts, opening her eyes and squinting against the sun's glare. "C'mere."

After a few more surreptitious bounces -- the Tidus Mark III shot was stubbornly eluding his finishing touches -- Tidus tossed the ball in its hamper and jogged over. "Yo. Did I wake you?"

She stretched, hooked a thumb over the waistband of his shorts and pulled herself upright, smiling at the agreeable sight of his bare torso gleaming with perspiration. "Oh, no. It's just too beautiful an afternoon to fritter away with blitzball."

"Heh," he murmured, noticing her frank inspection, so different from the shy Summoner of six years ago. Nowadays, he tended to be the one who blushed. "Maybe you're right." The comfortable fit of his arm around her waist reminded her that yes, life could be even better.

Yuna melted him with that angel's smile and leaned close, letting his earnest blue eyes fill her sky. "I'm always ri--"

"Tidus! Yunie! Report to the bridge pronto!" Rikku's voice shrilled over the intercom.

Tidus groaned and slammed a fist into the deck-plate. "How does she _know_?" he grumbled. "How does she _always_ know?"

"Hidden commsphere on the forward gun array?" Yuna would not put it past her cousin. However, she had not missed the urgent edge to Rikku's summons, and broke away from Tidus' stubborn kisses with a reluctant sigh. "Come on. Rikku sounds worried." She scooped up her tank top and hurried towards the main hatch, smiling a little at Tidus' grumbling at her heels.

* * *

- 

"Thank you, Kimahri. We'll meet you back in Besaid." Almost, almost, her friends were taken in by Yuna's serene confidence. Any eavesdropper who had missed the beginning of the conversation might suppose that they were merely planning a casual beach get-together.

"Yuna and friends be careful." Kimahri's stern growl blasted the transmission with static.

"Don't worry about us!" Tidus brandished his familiar fist-pump. "They're the ones who need to be worrying."

"Tell Wakka Jr. his mum's gonna be okay," Rikku chimed in, uncharacteristically subdued. "We'll find her. Tell him Auntie Rikku said so, you hear?"

"Will tell. Guard Yuna," he added gruffly.

"Yep!" The Al Bhed perked up. "We'll do that!"

"Kimahri!" Yuna protested. But this was no time for idle quibbling. "We'll send word as soon as we find anything. _Jecht_ out."

As soon as the Ronso's image vanished from the forward screen, Yuna turned towards her cousin briskly. "Rikku. Look up the ferry's route. We'll start scanning there. Tidus..."

"Break out the hunting supplies, right." He hesitated, touching her shoulder. "Hey. You okay?"

Yuna lowered her eyes, fidgeting with her necklace. "I just wish there were time for the Gullwings to rendezvous with us. Paine will be sorry to miss the fireworks."

Tidus' brows crinkled in concern. "Yeah, well, this will be like old times, eh? Just Lady Yuna and her trusty Guardians."

The High Summoner mustered a scowl worthy of Lulu herself. "Get going."

He gave her shoulder a firm squeeze, then headed for the lift.

Sagging, Yuna braced her hands on the back of the pilot's chair as Rikku folded herself into the front seat of the cramped cockpit. Rikku's lithe fingers danced over the controls. "We're on our way," she announced unnecessarily when the ship lurched into motion. Still intent on the columns of green Al Bhed characters scrolling across her monitor, she exclaimed angrily, "Who the heck _are_ these guys? Making a ship up to look like Sin? That's pretty overboard for pirates!"

"I...don't know." Yuna stared past Rikku's crest of hair to the maddeningly tranquil blue sky beyond the windows, struck by an eerie feeling of deja vú. This must have been what her Guardians felt like all those years ago, when Seymour's goons snatched her from Home. Her hands itched for her guns, and targets.

"Betcha they're the same bastards that got Wakka and the Aurochs," Rikku guessed darkly. "We'll scrag 'em. Nobody messes with High Summoner Yunie's friends. Nobody."

"You're right." She wished the _Jecht_ had the same weaponry as Cid's old airship, but once they reached Lulu, firepower should not be a problem. "I just hope she realizes we're coming."

Rikku squirmed around in her chair and rested her cheek on Yuna's fingers. "She'll be spittin' mad, but she'll be okay. Try not to fret. As long as she's got Vidina waitin' for her, Lu won't do anythin' stupid."

"True." Yuna exhaled briskly and straightened. "All right. I'd better collect ammo. Want me to put your kit together?"

"Nah, I'll come down soon as I've got our search path programmed. You and Sir Doofus stay out of my stuff; I don't want any more explosions."


	3. Battlestations

"So what've you got?" Tidus leaned over Rikku's shoulder, squinting at her scanner. Yuna shifted her holsters and wedged in next to him, pushing Rikku's hair aside to see.

"Hey, hey, back off, you two! Gross! Here." The contents of the pilot's console flashed up onto the forward windows. "Look." Rikku pointed. "Can't tell much about that thing, but it's big, it's metal, it's moving, and it's half a mile underwater. And that—" a cursor flashed over one of the island chains obscured by clouds— "is its present heading. Look familiar?"

"Ummmm." Tidus turned to Yuna, who was chewing her lip thoughtfully. "No?"

"'S where I found you in the first place, dork," Rikku answered. "Baaj temple. There's a ton of ruins, plus that creepy Guado mansion out in the middle of nowhere."

"Where Seymour and his mother lived after they were cast out," Yuna said, tight-lipped.

"Oh, right." Tidus made a face. "Anima." He had never entirely trusted the powerful aeon they had picked up from Seymour's aborted pilgrimage.

"Coincidence?" Yuna stared off into the distance, eyes unfocusing on the screen. "Or simply the raiders' next target?"

Her cousin shrugged. "Well, there's a whole lot of machina down there in that sunken city. It's where Pops' airship came from. Maybe that's where the raiders found theirs."

"So that island's their base," Tidus said.

"Could be. Which means we'd better make sure they don't blow us out of the sky before we can land." Rikku tipped her head back, nudging Yuna's elbow. "What's the gameplan, boss?"

Yuna smiled down at her wanly. The Gullwings would probably have gone in blazing with no plan whatsoever, but caution was finally starting to rub off on her cousin. Unfortunately, Yuna was still more of a diplomat than a tactician. Summoner's training had strongly discouraged independent thinking; guardians were there to open doors when puzzles needed solving. Not for the first time, Yuna found herself missing Lulu's prudent counsel. "Look for a site to put down where the ruins may help conceal us. Scan for any new structures. A ship that size has to have some kind of dock, right?"

"Yep. Though it may be underwater. But if they've got heavy-duty unloaders, the sensors will probably pick 'em up."

Tidus paced in a tight circle behind them, idly slapping the empty seats' armrests, causing the cousins to exchange patient smiles. Rikku turned back to her console, checking the scanners. "Hey, guys? Just one thing. If the kidnappers are pirates, why didn't they just plunder the ship and leave? Kimahri said they asked for Lulu by name. They wanted her."

"Ransom, maybe?" Tidus jabbed a thumb towards himself. "Legendary Guardian and all that."

"Why didn't they try to nab Kimahri, then?" Rikku pointed out. "He's Yunie's guardian and elder of the Ronso."

"They said, 'Lulu of Besaid,'" Yuna mused, a painful thought dawning on her. "You don't suppose—"

"They're using Lulu as bait to catch Besaid's biggest celebrity?" Tidus scowled. "Well they're not going to get you or her!"

Rikku killed the forward display. The green ocean was much closer now, rushing up to meet the ship at a sickening velocity. "Then why not Kimahri? Unless the raiders decided both of them would be too much to handle."

"Thank goodness they didn't. Poor Vidina." Yuna exhaled explosively. "How much longer?"

"About ten minutes. Better take your positions. We're comin' in low; this could get rocky."

"Right."

As Yuna moved towards the lefthand gunner's chair, Tidus caught her hand. "Yuna." He cleared his throat. "You know, just in case it's you they're after, maybe you should guard the ship while Rikku and I—"

"Not a chance!" She gave his hand a sharp shake. "How many times do I have to tell you: you're not my guardians any longer! Besides, I don't let you out of my sight, remember?" They shared a quick kiss, then slid into their seats.

"Shoot to kill?" Tidus whispered across the aisle, strapping himself in.

"Anything or anyone in our way," Yuna replied firmly. "Whatever it takes."

"Right on. For Lulu." His thumbs settled on the triggers. One of Letty's old cheers drifted back to him, and he added softly, "And for Cap'n Wakka."

Rikku flipped off the autopilot and seized the steering yoke. "Hang on!" she whooped. The _Jecht_ dropped, banked, and skimmed close to the wavetops. Rising out of the sea ahead of them and spreading towards either horizon was a labyrinthine forest of submerged pillars, crumbling walls, and ancient spires.

* * *

Baaj Manor. Lulu's nails picked mechanically at another tangle while she mulled over her situation and attempted to set her coiffure in order. The Guado captain had ordered her to be removed to a holding cell, perhaps noticing her eavesdropping. She gave an idle kick to the anti-magic sphere dropped in the corner, slightly too large to be shoved between bars. She could not even muster a simple water spell to wash the salt away.

Drained and numb, the caged sorceress circled the tiny room like a sleepwalker while she brushed out her long hair. Had the ferry sustained too much damage to reach land? Where was her son? The invisible weight of the ocean separating her from Vidina felt like the crushing weight of Gagazet. She had absolute faith in Kimahri, but little hope left that she would see either of them again.

Not no hope, however. If her captors let down their guard, there were no loved ones here, no innocent bystanders, no precious young to be endangered by an inferno unleashed. That made her perilous. "Wakka," she whispered tiredly. "I wonder if you understand how vengeance could be love." Another man would, but he was lost too, and thinking of him now would make her feel even colder.

So. Baaj Manor. Apparently these scavengers had reoccupied the ancient complex that Yuna and her guardians had discovered while seeking weapons for their battle against Sin. Lulu recalled that the residence near the temple had been severely damaged, exhibiting signs of a Sin attack. She guessed that the raiders must have rebuilt it. Was she their only prisoner? Maybe-

A booted tread in the corridor cut short her pondering. A masked guard in an old warrior monk's uniform halted outside the door and levelled a rifle towards her. The Guado captain strode into view a moment later, unlatching the door and planting himself in the threshold. He bowed deeply. "I apologize for the limited accommodations, milady; you will find more comfortable lodgings once we reach the manor." He folded his hands across his waistcoat, a simplified version of the livery that Lulu remembered from the old days in Guadosalam. "I am Burrell. You probably don't remember me; I was one of Lord Seymour's retainers. I have not forgotten what you and your friends did to him in Macalania Temple."

Lulu darted a wary glance at the guard, feeling tepid satisfaction when he tensed and gripped his weapon more tightly. "So this is payback?"

"Sadly, no." Burrell favored her with a cloying smile. "Lady Yuna has been very insistent about leaving old quarrels in the past. Spira is a new world with new opportunities, as she is fond of informing us! Therefore, we have seized one. Recently, it occurred to me that you, in particular, possess certain abilities that could enhance our new Sindicate."

Lulu frowned scornfully. "You're working for LeBlanc?"

"No, no, that coward Tromell has not seen fit to dislodge the rabble occupying our former lord's estate. Their name, however, seemed too apt to resist, since we have found a way to engineer Sin's return, in a manner of speaking. Thus far, we have confined ourselves to small targets at sea. My sources suggest that your powers might allow us to mimic Sin's land attacks."

The mage snorted. "Surely you know that I would sink this ship before turning _Ultima_ against innocent Spirans."

"Perhaps." Burrell shrugged expressively. "And if Lady Yuna's safety were contingent on your cooperation?"

"Still no." Lulu fixed him with a frosty glare. "And you don't have her. But if you did, I would refuse. Yuna would never permit what you are doing, even at the cost of her life."

"So we fear." Burrell sighed. "A pity. I'm afraid that if you will not join us, we cannot risk having you— or High Summoner Yuna and her associates— against us. Alas for Spira! Without Lady Yuna, Old Yevon, or the Fayth, I fear that Summoners and Guardians will have few means at their disposal to combat the terrible menace of Sin." He shook his head mock-sorrowfully. "Good day, milady." With another glib bow, he exited the cell and slid the door shut.

He did not draw the bolts, but Lulu's slender hopes were immediately dashed by his next words. "Oh. One final matter. I would be remiss if I did not give you a last chance to reconsider. I understand that some of my crew are eager to try their own methods of—" he coughed delicately, "persuasion." Burrell removed a metal case from his sleeve and slid it on the floor through the bars. "Don't let her die before we reach Baaj," he instructed the guard mildly, nodding to the small package. "Use healing potions if your men become overzealous." He fixed Lulu with one last oily smile. "Do let them know if you change your mind, milady."


	4. Nova

Lulu's wrists grated like mismatched gears, and the teeth of pain gnawing at them were worse than anything she could remember. Clearly, she had grown soft since her pilgrimage days. She was no longer chained to the bars, but sometime between the time when she had fallen unconscious during their tiresome games and now —

_Broken._

Lulu felt it as soon as she tried to clench her fists. The bastards had broken her hands. She tried to keep her breathing quiet and eyes closed, despite the overwhelming urge to see whether her tormentors had gone.

Fortune, as usual, was doing her no favors. "I didn't think she'd lost that much blood." That was the warrior monk, sounding petulant.

The other voice belonged to the Al Bhed woman who was unpleasantly adept with a knife. "So? She's a mage. All fire and pyrotechnics, helpless as a baby without her magic."

"Hunh. Guess you're right. Chief's so scared of her. I wonder if she's really as bad as all that." He sighed wistfully. "Just have a look at those gonzagas. I really should've—"

"We're nearly back to base, sir."

There was a grunt. "Right. Fetch me one of those vials."

Lulu clenched her hands, and her breath caught between her teeth. Bad move. The pain was making it difficult to focus. Worse, they had heard her.

"Damn, the bitch is awake!"

There was a clank, and her chief tormentor stepped into the cell. She opened her eyes and was gratified to see the man's leer falter slightly at the blistering fury behind her gaze. But she was pinned in here, and they knew it. That did not stop her from trying.

Her frenzied leap caught him unprepared, knocking him down and sending him tumbling into the woman gaping behind him. There was a crunch of metal and glass as the medical kit went flying. Kicking, snarling, all but oblivious to the shooting agony when her fingers drove into spiralled green eyes, Lulu lunged for the corridor. As she scrabbled desperately to clamber over them, gauntleted hands clamped around her ankle. The butt of a gun cracking against her scalp made the struggle a brief one.

* * *

Yuna, Tidus, and Rikku stole through the harbor with barely a splash. Swimming made it difficult to see much above the embankments, piers, and ruined walls jutting out of the water, but they were far less likely to be spotted by the handful of sentries stationed around the mansion and along the wharves. Painstakingly, carefully, stroke by stroke, the trio swam from broken pillar to submerged rooftop to natural outcrop, using any cover available to climb out and scout. In addition to the main house, the raiders had erected several warehouses and outbuildings enough to house and feed a small army.

Rikku crept up the remains of an old spiral staircase with a bit of broken balustrade left hanging while Tidus and Yuna waited below. After a few moments, she pitched a pebble down with a soft plunk. At her signal, they climbed up after her, pressing themselves against the stones and peering over the lip of the none-too-sturdy platform where she lay flattened on her stomach.

"What's up?" Tidus murmured, balancing Chappu's sword across his back to keep it from clanging against the steps.

"I'm just checking the depth," she whispered back, keying something into the small sphere she was carrying. "It's hard to see, but look." She traced a finger in the air. "They've left most of the ruins clogging up the harbor, and only cleared out a passage wide enough for their ship to navigate. Good way to keep out intruders. Over there's the dock. It looks like the Sin-ship will pass right by that bit yonder, the tower with the broken dome." She cocked her head. "Think we can lay low on that for a while?"

"Hunh?" Tidus was eloquent as ever. "But we still need to find a way into the house." He squinted over at the mansion, new walls gleaming a pale pink in the sunset in contrast to the dark brown stone of the older parts of the building. A group of men had exited one of the nearest warehouses and were rolling out low, wide carts on heavy drum-shaped wheels, taking up positions along the dock. "Looks like they're starting to get ready, too."

"Yeah, but listen. If we wait for them to take her inside, we'll still have to sneak in somehow, and the chances of finding her before they find us..." Rikku spread her hands glumly. "We might not even be able to see which building they stick her in. But what if we sneak aboard their vessel before it lands, and grab Lulu as soon as they bring her out?"

Yuna gazed down at the flat, golden water lapping gently below. "You're sure the ship will be above water?"

"Pretty sure." Rikku chewed her lip. "If not, we can just wait for it to pass, then fall back on Operation Jailbreak, right?"

"Hee-eeey." Tidus flashed a thumbs up. "Sounds like a plan."

"Some of the crew may be on deck to dock," Yuna reminded them.

"Then we cut 'em down!" Tidus said fiercely. "It's gonna come down to a fight, no matter what."

"Right, but let's try not to give ourselves away before we see her." Yuna nudged her cousin gently. "Rikku, did you remember to set the autopilot?"

The Al Bhed groaned. "_Yes_, Yunie. I promise. We'll have to hold off these goons for about two minutes once I send the recall signal."

"All right." Yuna smiled reassuringly, then cleared her throat. "Um. One... other thing."

Two pairs of eyes turned towards her, knowing that uneasy tone all too well.

She smiled a little at their stubborn expressions; usually at this point they would be mustering reasoned arguments to dissuade her from whatever self-endangering scheme she had in mind. "They may threaten Lulu before we reach her. Just remember. I don't want them to hurt her, but I _can_ heal her, as long as she's still in one piece. Our goal is to bring her back, however we can."

"Oh, Yunie." Rikku breathed out. "Yeah."

Tidus slipped an arm behind Yuna's back, and she allowed herself to rest her head on his shoulder briefly. "C'mon," he said quietly. "We'd better get moving."

* * *

When she awoke, Lulu found the manacles were back in place. The pressure of the metal cuffs against shattered bones was enough to drive out every coherent thought. There was only one guard left, the warrior monk whom Burrell had left in charge, but he was in the cell with her. His left hand was in his pants. His right gripped the bayonet unclipped from his rifle.

"Good news," he sneered. "We're docking now, and HQ reports a small airship in the vicinity. Your friends are on their way. The chief says you need to stay down here until we've had a chance to welcome them. In the meantime, I feel like celebrating, don't you?" He stepped forward and seized her by the hair.

Hovering on wings of pain, Lulu felt detached, indifferent. Outside of this cell, only one man could have done that and survived, and he was a faded memory. On the whole, she wished very much that she were with him right now. Was it wrong to miss him too?

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the sparkle of broken glass and a shattered knob of wires and metal. _There: a door._ She thought of her son waiting for her in Besaid. But her friends were flying into an ambush for her sake. She yearned to hope. She almost trusted Yuna's aptitude for miracles, but the mage herself had tasted death and failure so many times. Whose luck would prevail? It was unthinkable that she might lose Yuna as well.

Hands yanked at the front of her corset. "How does this thing come off, anyway?" The guard twisted her around roughly against her fetters, nearly causing her to black out again, and started sawing at the laces.

The deck suddenly trembled underfoot, signalling their arrival. Lulu gritted her teeth. She prayed that Yuna would realize what had happened, hoped that the explosion would be clearly visible from the surface. Surely if the ship sank, her friends would unravel the omen. "My...little...secret..." she hissed. She tried to blot out the man's grunting breath on the back of her neck. One lace snapped, and then the next. The sorceress smirked, feeling the trickle of power flowing back into her fingers like blood into a frostbitten limb. Her gown began to slip down as her inner mantra of loathing, agony, loss and bitter disappointment mounted higher. Her parents. Chappu. Ginnem. Yevon's betrayal. Auron. Wakka. Her son's tears.

It was time.

_I am going to see you again, if it's the last thing I do. And it will be._ She closed her right hand into a fist, bracing herself against the pain.

* * *

Tidus snorted. "Oh, gimme a break. That thing doesn't look anything like Sin."

Yuna giggled halfheartedly, watching the misshapen craft slithering in their direction between pilings and submerged rubble. Its hull had been painted a mottled gray, with numerous vents and gunports capped by bulbous, irregular domes and protrusions. Many of them had barnacles and plants growing on them, while others were painted to look like huge eyes. A large boom or gantry running the length of the top deck, turned sideways and folded flat, had been decorated to resemble an enormous fin, its sides irregular and its surface pocked with a bank of round openings sealed by iris-like hatches.

"Where's the exit?" Rikku grumbled. "I can't tell what I'm looking at!"

"Get ready," Yuna whispered back. "We'll aim for the back of the ship. Aft of that fin, see it? There's some sort of cabin, but there's no windows. Let's hide behind that."

"Got it."

"Roger!"

They huddled close. Hands piled one above the other in a firm three-way clasp. Then they inched up the dome on their bellies, fingers slipping on ancient tiles. The ship chugged ponderously towards them. They could hear voices drifting across the water from the shore, but so far, no one seemed to have spotted the three figures plastered across the top of the sunken tower like seals.

"Now!" Yuna whispered fiercely.

They leapt together. Rikku landed awkwardly across a hatch, rolled and yelped. Tidus reached out to steady Yuna, wobbling dangerously on the curved edge of the hull. "Rikku!" she hissed.

"Sorry," the girl shot back, ducking down. All three crouched low. Tidus peered warily over the top of the huge fin and along its length, peering towards the waterfront. "I don't think they heard us."

"Whoa," Rikku said with grudging respect as they crept behind the cabin-like structure on the rear deck. "It's like a giant crane. This is the housing for the hydraulics. Keep alert in case it starts moving."

With a vast shuddering groan, the boom began to rise. The trio scrambled backwards as the fin lifted laboriously into the sky. When it was fully erect, it began to pivot. There was another quivering rumble, and the water ahead of the bow frothed furiously as the vessel decelerated. Gradually, the fin came down again, now jutting out ninety degrees to the deck. The ship coasted in alongside the dock and ground to a halt with a hollow boom. The fin slammed onto the dock a few seconds later, forming a bridge to shore. Ground crew began to swarm aboard, laying down metal plates across the irregularly-shaped gangway and heading for a large hatch that had been hidden beneath it.

"There's the door," Rikku whispered.

Yuna twisted the caps off the her guns and glanced down, checking for seepage. "Get ready."

They waited. Sailors began to spill from the vessel's maw. With growing impatience, they monitored the crew unloading crates, racks of gray suits and weapons, heavy chests and other more old-fashioned containers that appeared to have been seized from the ships they had plundered. Every time a new figure emerged from the ship's interior, the silent observers tensed, but there was still no sign of Lulu.

Rikku grimaced at the handful of Al Bhed working alongside the others. "What are those losers doing here?"

"What about him?" Tidus nodded towards a spikey-haired figure who seemed to be in charge.

Yuna edged up a tiny bit, trying to overhear what the Guado was saying. Was it wishful thinking, or had she caught the word "prisoner"?

"Hey!" One of the sailors suddenly pointed. Heads swung in their direction.

"Guards!" the Guado bellowed at once. "Intruders on deck! Seize them immediately!"

"_Vilg_," Rikku stated succinctly, reaching for a grenade.

A cluster of sailors surged towards the stern, some brandishing blades, others machina weapons. The more alert sentries onshore raced for the gangway, waving and calling for backup. Other crew members swore and dove for cover as Yuna coolly opened fire.

"Yaaaa!" Tidus leapt up to shield Yuna and Rikku as the foremost guards barrelled around both sides of the cabin. _Brotherhood_ was as thirsty as ever, flashing like a fish and gleaming in its own light. Cries and blood flew as the young swordsman spun and sliced. He grinned wickedly at the shocked expressions of his foes who always seemed one step behind him. Yuna's blanketing fire was keeping most of those with ranged weapons pinned at the far end of the ship. Neither she nor Tidus missed a beat in their carnage when a sudden explosion engulfed the entire forward deck, scattering shrapnel. Smoke and flames billowed out of the main hatch. Rikku bounced up with a ragged whoop and joined Tidus in mayhem, drawing her knives and dancing into the fray.

"Rikku!" Yuna called. "The gangway! Blow it up!"

"Roger that! Cover me!" The thief dodged in a crazy, drunken jig that threatened to send her tumbling into the brink as she sought to clear enough space around her for an unobstructed cast.

"High Summoner Yuna!" A loudspeaker fixed upon the dock crackled to life. "We are holding the sorceress Lulu. Surrender at once, or she will be killed."

Rikku froze in the act of sheathing her knives and palming another grenade. "Yunie?"

"Recall signal," the gunner replied determinedly. "Hurry."

The deck suddenly gave a violent heave, throwing most of their foes off their feet. Several were pitched overboard. "What the—?" Tidus said, hurled to his knees by the concussion. The metal plates a few yards away were bulging upward, and tendrils of smoke and steam were issuing from the seams.

"Rikku!" Yuna cried. Her cousin was nowhere in sight. A wail from the water below confirmed her second-worst fear.

"Halt!"

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Yuna scanned the bevy of rifle muzzles pointed at her and Tidus, and calculated that there was exactly one too many.


	5. Never Forget Them

_Lulu closed her right hand into a fist, bracing herself against the pain..._

There was a familiar swish-thump. Through half-closed eyes she saw the guard's body fall away from her in two pieces, blood leaping out in a red arc. No, not blood. A coat.

"You're late, Auron," she whispered. An arm slipped around her as she slumped against the chains. His skin felt like a furnace, or else she was freezing.

Chains were severed. Keys jingled. Excruciating manacles opened and fell with a double bang. Freedom.

Lulu was dimly aware of being carried, of cries of anger and dismay, of stiff leather and metal chafing against bruises and broken skin, of the shimmering sound of metal shearing through metal, bone, flesh, clearing a path before them. The world was swimming by. _I'm dead,_ she thought. _My body is dying, and this is a final dream as the mind slips free. At least he is here to catch me._ "Let me down," she murmured.

"Save your strength." It was his voice, gruff as ever and brittle with anger directed at everything in the world apart from her.

The noise and chaos built. Cries of _stop them_ and _intruders on deck_, and _chief calling for reinforcements_ swirled around them. The voices would not subside, nor would the pain, and Auron did not seem to be able to carry her without jostling her wounds. Why did he have to keep fighting even now, when they had both earned their rest a hundred times over? Was it always this much of a struggle to reach the Farplane? Finally, he set her down. The ground was harder than she had expected. She opened her eyes to find him crouched over her with brows and shoulders knitted in concentration, gripping the hilt of his sword and bracing it against the floor close by her ear. Shadowy figures were closing in on all sides, haloed by murky blue lighting. The voices had stopped, apart from angry, intermittent mutters and epithets. Some instinct made Lulu reach for the black blade, although it hurt to open her hand. She felt the searing pulse of power burrowing down through the metal under her fingertips.

"It _is_ you," Lulu breathed, all but unaware of the ominous _clack_ of triggers being cocked.

Auron's smirk was mostly hidden by his collar as he met her gaze over the rim of his glasses. At the same moment, multiple dark pillars of fire exploded on all sides. Screams and cries added to the din. The loading bay was plunged into billowing smoke, hot steam, and an acrid reek of smoldering machinery.

""Your ride's waiting," Auron murmured, covering her hand for a moment before scooping her and easing her over his shoulder once more. Taking little notice of the gauntlet of darkness and destruction around them, he strode onward.

* * *

- 

_"The dream isn't over yet  
Though I often say I can't forget  
I still relive that day..." _

_-- 1000 Words_

Yuna pressed against Tidus' back, feeling his ribs heaving from his exertions. "Well, come on, then!" he taunted, evidently goading other enemies behind her.

Lenne's lyrical vision of her and Shuyin's last moments washed over Yuna in a flood of resigned sorrow. Had it been prophecy after all? The weapons, the faceless masks and dour faces of their assailants were different, but the odds were much the same. Her arms suddenly felt heavy, and she found herself lowering her pistols. "Tidus," she whispered. "I lo--"

A gurgling shriek rose up from the main hatch, and two men caught in the act of turning towards it suddenly collapsed in a swift rain of blood, heads sheared away. Yuna gaped. A tall figure in red was climbing into view, hefting a ridiculously large sword in one hand, the other cradling Lulu's limp form against his chest and shoulder. Two of the gunmen facing off with Yuna glanced over their shoulders nervously.

"Break for it!" she barked, recovering her composure and charging, firing point-blank into the foes surrounding them. She felt a vague horror at all the slaughter, but atonement would have to wait. Tidus' angry _ow_ reassured her that the footsteps pounding behind her were his. Auron strode towards them, scything a path around himself. Some of the raiders were crying out a name that she had not expected to hear again. Tears brimmed in her eyes. Nearly everyone in Spira had heard of that sword, that coat.

"No way," Tidus blurted out, staggering to a halt beside Yuna and whirling again to guard her back.

"Fools!" The Guado captain had retreated along the dock and was shouting back towards the ship. "Kill him!"

"That might prove difficult." If matters were not so dire, Yuna would have joined in Auron's soft, dark laughter.

"Sir Auron," Yuna gasped, sketching a quick bow. "We've lost Rikku, too!"

Right on cue, another explosion showered sparks and bits of broken glass over them in a light rain, scattering the sailors fleeing across the gangway. A familiar figure was clinging to a ladder at the end of the dock. "Guys? Guys? A little help here!" Rikku shouted across the water.

"We're leaving," Auron stated, wrapping both arms around the mage. Coat flapping, he took a running start and cleared the gap from ship to dock in one long leap.

"Thanks a lot, old man," Tidus grumbled. "Let's go!" Limping slightly, he dashed onto the gangway where a few shellshocked sentries were still barring their way. "Legendary hero comin' through!" he barked, hacking and slashing a path for them. On the far side, Tidus and Yuna found Auron crouched with his back to the shore, shielding Lulu with his body. Rikku was dancing around him like a drunken hornet, keeping enemies at bay with a haphazard spray of sparklers and small explosives.

"Hey, Mister Grumpy!" she called, heaving a grenade over Tidus' shoulder to discourage pursuit. "Was that boom-boom down in the ship your Dragon Fang thingie? You knocked me overboard!"

"Sorry," he smirked. "Where's your ship?"

"On its way. Yo, Tidus, gimme a hand with this." The two of them moved together to heave crates off one of the flatbed loading carts, upending it to form an improvised shield against sporadic gunfire.

Yuna hurried to Auron's side, postponing questions and awe for the moment to examine the semi-conscious mage. "Oh, Lulu." There were so many slashes, bruises and gashes on every exposed area of skin -- and elsewhere, to judge by the blood seeping through the woman's tattered dress -- that she barely knew where to begin. Biting back worry, Yuna holstered her guns and placed her hands over Lulu's forehead and heart.

Reaching for a fire gem, Rikku suddenly paused and peered through the colorful smoke wafting up from her last round of pyrotechnics. "Uh oh."

With a whine of hydraulics, the fore and aft batteries of the raiders' ship were rising out of the hull, one bank of cannons swivelling towards them, the other canting skyward.

"Oh boy," Tidus muttered. "Um, Rikku?"

In a light healing trance, Yuna saw Auron's lips brush against the mage's ear. "Lulu. We need you."

The sorceress sighed, stirred, and extended a pale arm striped with red. Auron reached out and scooped Rikku towards himself with the flat of his blade. Coming to herself just in time, Yuna grabbed Tidus by the hood and reeled him in.

Rikku's surprised squawk was lost in a silent, eardrum-pounding explosion. Spreading out from them in a blossoming circle, the invisible shockwave sheared off cannons, pilings, and the top of the stone wall lining the harbor. Stacked cargo and helpless victims were seized and flung like leaves in a hurricane. Every window facing the waterfront shattered. The Sin-ship groaned and began to roll inexorably on its side. As the ringing in their ears subsided, the sounds of battle were replaced by the rush of water pouring into the main hatch, the patter of falling masonry, and faint, muffled cries coming from the vessel settling beneath the surface. Earlier, Yuna might have felt a pang of remorse, but Lulu's grave condition had hardened her heart.

"Yeah!" Tidus crowed, sitting up and pumping his fist. "That's for the Aurochs and Wakka!"

Yuna thought she saw a weak, smug smile flicker across Lulu's face, although the woman's eyes had fluttered shut again.

There was a whoosh and a roar overhead, the sound of braking thrusters firing. Rikku glanced up and sighed with relief, afraid for an instant that Lulu's blast wave might have eliminated their escape route. "There's the _Jecht_. Right on time."

Auron exhaled, expression opaque. "Take care of her," he said gruffly.

"Wait!" Yuna exclaimed, clutching the folds of his coat.

Pyreflies burst upwards in a swirling fountain of ghostly jewels that brushed against the faces of the three friends like the whisper of a sword-blade's passage. He was gone.


	6. No Tears, This Time?

"Knock, knock!" Rikku's voice sang out, faintly muffled through the door. "It's just me."

Yuna glanced at Lulu, who nodded minutely. "Come in!" the younger woman called.

Rikku squeezed sideways and tapped the "close" button with her elbow before the door had finished opening. "Hey," she said warmly over the mechanism's protesting stutter. "Tidus is fine, just a bullet-hole or two. He's flying the ship, but we should be safe as long he doesn't try to land. He told me to stop slathering him with smelly potions and see how Lu was doing." Her eyes twinkled.

"I'm... almost finished." Yuna was dabbing a damp cloth against Lulu's neck, where only a few faint welts remained.

Rikku nodded sagely. "Making sure Besaid's resident goddess looks as perfect as ever, eh?" She sobered at the mage's inscrutable expression, and waited a beat for the usual barbed retort. When none was forthcoming, she edged past Yuna's stool and headed for the sink, fetched a cup of water, and pressed it silently into the older woman's hands.

Lulu took the offering with care, hands still ginger from her recent ordeal. She drained the cup in small, precise sips, then passed it back with a gentle, "Thank you, Rikku."

"Mm-hmm." Rikku whisked it away, then scooted back to perch on the edge of the cot next to Lulu, wincing at the drying bloodstains on the sheets. She would have to get those cleaned while they were in Besaid. There had not been time to prepare the spare cabin for a guest, so Rikku had offered her own room for the trip back.

Lulu sat with regal composure, hands folded across her lap, while Yuna leaned close to examine her handiwork. The healer's intimate attentions might have been intrusive, had it been anyone else but Yuna. Discreetly and efficiently, she inspected the mage's skin one area at a time and treated any remaining marks with a strong healing salve. Rikku watched the procedure for a while, chin propped on her hands, then stirred with a sudden, "Oh!" Scooting forward, she dove and fished out a brush from the floor beneath the bed. Shyly she touched one of Lulu's long black tresses and raised an eyebrow. "May I?" Again, the sorceress gave a succinct nod, but she favored the girl with a wisp of a smile. Rikku grinned back and set to work. Apparently Lulu had taken a brief shower, but right now her hair looked like a prowling mass of Sinspawn trying to devour Rikku's moogle doll collection.

"There." Yuna gently drew the sorceress' robe closed and tied it. "As soon as Rikku's finished, you ought to sleep. We'll be home in a few hours."

Lulu murmured another quiet, "Thanks," and sat as still as a Summoner's statue being dusted and decked out for festival. Yuna settled back on the stool facing her. Light and dark sisters. They were accustomed to so many years of communal silence, between prayers and temple chores and the long leagues of their shared pilgrimage, that simple presence was almost an embrace.

Rikku, however, was not one to let unspoken matters simmer. "Wasn't that something?" she chattered away while she worked. She had always enjoyed chances to play with Lulu's hair, especially since the mage had seldom permitted it after the incident with the curlers. "Who'd have thought? Sir Auron still around, swooping in at the nick of time!"

Lulu's long lashes drooped. "Yes. It was good to see him again."

"I wonder why he could not come sooner," Yuna murmured, trying to keep her voice steady. "Lulu, I'm sorry. They were using you to get at me."

"Not entirely, Yuna. Either way, you mustn't blame yourself." A hint of Lulu's usual imposing scowl reasserted itself. "You carry enough on your shoulders."

"So do you." Yuna smiled fondly. "But you never lean on us."

Rikku nodded emphatically. "Yeah, what she said! You don't always have to be so... you know... tetra-grade steel! We're your friends, Lulu."

"I do appreciate that." The sorceress inhaled deeply, shifting her attention towards the porthole, beyond which the sunset was laying out a subtle fabric of lemon-yellow clouds. "What do you want me to say? I loved. I lost. Three times."

"Whoa-whoa-whoa!" Rikku waggled the brush. "Kimahri brought Vidina to Besaid! Wakka Junior is safe and sound; you'll see him soon!"

"I know." Lulu caught Yuna's eye and dropped her gaze, as if in silent apology.

Yuna leaned forward, sweeping long dark wisps out of the older woman's eyes just as Lulu used to comfort her during the challenges of her rigorous training. "Lulu, what is it?"

"'Wakka Junior.' If he were much younger, I... would not have been certain." She squeezed Yuna's hands lightly. "Understand, I do— I did love Wakka very much. But I found it difficult to let go of Chappu." Again she paused, selecting and doling out each word with care. "Sir Auron helped."

"Hunh?" Rikku stared. "What's that supposed to mean?"

The mage started to speak, then frowned and closed her lips firmly. She extended an upturned palm towards Rikku, mutely requesting the brush.

"Oh, Lulu," Yuna breathed.

"I'd like some time to think," the woman said huskily.

"Of course." Yuna reached for her cousin's scarf and tugged. "Lulu, we'll be topside for a while, if you find you want to talk."

"But, Yunie-!"

"Come." Yuna herded her out, giving the sorceress a wink that belied her own concern.

When they had gone, Lulu rose gracefully, crossed to the window, and stood there gazing out at the unreal aerial view of ocean which very few Yevonites had ever seen. _Sky and water: so vast, so powerful, yet so empty._ The few, spare tears that trickled down her cheeks seemed to belong to someone else, as did the hands meticulously setting her hair in order. If only it were as easy to untangle the heart.

* * *

"What did she mean?" Rikku jiggled from foot to foot in the narrow hallway. "Yunie?"

"I think you know." Yuna hugged her. "It's odd. I should be surprised, but I'm not, really."

"He-ey, what's going on?" Tidus stepped out of the next door down, towelling off his hair. A few bandages winked out between the webbing of his shorts and sleeves. "So how is she?"

Rikku's eyes widened in horror. She started to race for the bridge, voice rising in a squeak. "You stupid—!"

"Relax, I left us on autopilot. Brother's been giving me lessons." Tidus ignored Rikku's long-suffering, "oh, _great_," and turned towards Yuna. "So what's up? Is Lulu going to be okay?"

"I...I think so." Yuna reached for his hand, eyes darting towards Rikku's cabin. "Come, we shouldn't talk here. Outside?"

"Sure." There was a certain urgency in his amble as he headed for the lift. Rikku trotted behind them, still sputtering.

Soon they all piled out onto the upper deck, where a cold, brisk headwind was flowing over the hull. Islands inched past, clumps of shadows dropped from a great height into the flat gray sea. The sunset was deepening to rich purples and blues. Tidus snagged a blanket from a storage bin bolted next to the hatch, and they slipped around the side of the lift's turret to plunk down side by side with their backs to the bulkhead. Tidus drew the blanket over them and settled an arm around Yuna's waist, receiving an elbow-jab from Rikku sitting on the other side. He twisted around Yuna to grab playfully at her headband. "Hey, you."

"Settle down, you two." Yuna giggled.

"Whew." Rikku wiggled her toes out from under the edge of the blanket, soaking up the fading sunset with an emphatic sigh. "What a day."

"And?" Tidus prodded.

"Oh, right. Lu's all fixed up and being fine-like-always, except I don't buy it." Rikku turned to her cousin questioningly. "Whatcha thinking, Yunie?"

"Well." Yuna's fingers stole across Tidus' hand under the blanket. "She's grieving, but she's grieved before. That's part of what makes her strong. But she's not letting us in. I wish Wakka-" She broke off, feeling Tidus stiffen beside her. "Do either of you remember how she was during those last few weeks of the pilgrimage, after we left Bevelle?"

"After we rescued you from Seymour?" Tidus snuggled a little closer.

Yuna smiled a little. "Something like that," she demured, recalling their ill-conceived plan to crash her wedding. "We were all so focused on the end of the pilgrimage — bless you — that I barely noticed it at the time. But the farther we went, the calmer Lulu became, even while all the rest of you were fretting more and more."

"Well, _yeah_," Rikku said, poking her. "Nobody wanted you to die! But Lulu just kept going. She never let it show. Just like Sir—" She stopped and screwed up her face. "Yunie, you can't be serious. He was _dead_. Dead the whole time, only we didn't know it!"

"I know that! I Sent him, remember?" The ex-summoner bit her lip. "Why did he let me? Why did she?"

"Auron told me he was tired of 'playing at life,'" Tidus observed. "If Lulu didn't realize he was Unsent, it must've been pretty awkward. Or maybe he just thought it was time to step aside. 'This is your world now,' like he said. I donno. Did Lulu say anything about what happened between them?"

"Not exactly." Yuna smiled wistfully. "But apparently something did."

"But Yunie," Rikku grimaced. "There's no way. I mean, ew, not to be gross or anything, but if he's dead, then they couldn't have... I mean, _he_ couldn't have..."

"My healing magic always worked on him," Yuna pointed out delicately. "Even the life spells."

"Ugh." Rikku slammed a fist on the bulkhead, growing incensed again. "But that's just... that's just wrong! Isn't that what we fought Yu Yevon to stop? To break the cycle of all those creepy dead people holding power over us?"

Yuna swallowed. "Yes. Maybe that's why he left."

"So that Lulu could live her life." None of them had seen him arrive, but Auron was standing beside them, staring off into the distance. He was almost exactly the same, down to the slow flap of his coat and the faint rattle of blue beads dangling from the jug at his hip. His glasses were firmly in place, obscuring his expression and his scars as always. Only his hair had changed, streaked now with more white than gray.

Yuna flinched. "Sir Auron!"

"Yo!" Tidus grinned crookedly and raised a hand. "Long time no see."

Rikku leaned over and tapped a boot-top suspiciously with her fingernail. "Soooo, why'd you come back then?"

"I never left."

"Not such an old stiff after all, eh?" Tidus whistled.

Rikku only glared. "Why'd you let her fall for you in the first place? That was really dumb!"

Auron snorted. "Lulu is a difficult woman to refuse, once she's added you to her 'list.'" He turned towards them, gazing down at his former comrades. "But it was a mistake. I have hurt her again today."

"Yeah, well. Not like you could just sit there, if you knew she was in trouble." Rikku scratched her cheek thoughtfully. "Wow. I mean, it really is cool to see you again, you know?"

Tidus frowned. "So, Auron, you've been here all this time?"

The swordsman shrugged.

Yuna had been staring at him in mute awe blended with compassion. "Sir Auron?" she prodded.

"Yuna," he said. "I need your wisdom. Lulu is strong. Will she heal? Can she leave the past in the past, where it belongs?"

"I'm probably the wrong person to ask." Her voice softened with tender conviction. "We never really forget the dreams that have faded."

Auron waited patiently while Tidus seized her chin and drew her close for a fierce kiss. Rikku rolled her eyes and scooted away from them, giving Auron a beseeching look. The older guardian, however, seemed to be smiling faintly behind his collar. Pouting, Rikku stood up and made a show of brushing herself off. "Okay. That's it. I'm leaving. I'm sure you _three_ have tons to talk about." She gave Tidus' knee a light kick. "So, um, Auron, see ya around, maybe?"

"Perhaps."

"We'd better." Rikku leapt over Tidus' casual swipe and scampered for the elevator.

"Well," Yuna said after an embarrassed pause, recollecting her thoughts. "Lulu, she... she will live for her son. But that's really all she's done since Wakka passed."

"Like Mom," Tidus put in, suddenly subdued.

"I see." Auron grimaced. "How is the boy?"

"Oh, Vidina!" Yuna's face lit up. "He's so sweet. You'd hardly believe he was Lulu's. That is— oh, you know what she's like. Vidina's so sunny, all smiles, as if every day were the perfect Calm just like in the old stories. He's had a scare, now, but Lulu's coming back, so hopefully he won't be too badly shaken." She shook her head. "He doesn't remember Wakka much, unfortunately."

"You know," Tidus put in, "you were a pain in the neck sometimes, old man, but you didn't do too bad a job looking after me."

"You say that now."

"Heh." The blitzer leaned back, drumming his fingers against the deck. "Well, now that you've gone and blown your cover, why not stick around for a while?"

"It is...difficult."

"You're still here, aren't you?" Tidus grinned. "That makes two of us."

Auron gazed down at him impassively. "Yes and no. You were from Zanarkand, the city that lingered for a thousand years. You were sustained by the dreams of the Fayth, by the dreams of your father, Sin, and by the dreams of your friends. That dream never died. Whereas I am... only an echo."

Yuna winced. She felt an aching sympathy for the man, and for her part it was a quiet joy to see him again, a reassuring image from her childhood and a close friend of her father. But he was dangerously more than an image, and less than alive. Would his presence help or harm?

Tidus slapped his knee. "Hey, wait. Auron, you were touched by Sin too, right? And you were part of Zanarkand, right? You lived there ten years. Your hair even went gray. Is that normal for an Unsent?"

The swordsman touched his forelock, nonplussed. "I do not know."

"Do you love her?" Surely his lingering was answer enough, but Yuna wanted to hear him say it.

This was Auron, however. He kept staring into the distance.

"I heard you helping me," she said finally, before the silence could grow too awkward, "during that battle against Vegnagun. Thank you."

Auron nodded. "I'm very proud of you, Yuna. So are your parents."

Tears started in her eyes. "You speak to them?"

"Once in a while." Noting Tidus' sudden keen interest, he added drily, "Jecht likes your ship."

The young man ducked his head, eyes bright. "Cool," he said, a little embarrassed. "He's still a jerk."

Yuna reached for her necklace, a smaller version of the Abes' symbol that she had worn for a few years until she returned to more modest fashions. "I think..." She blanched, pinned by the sheer intensity of Auron's sudden scrutiny. "I think that some power in you, Sir Auron‚ or maybe also from _outside_ of you, is refusing to let go of what you were. Rage, grief, envy, greed, hate: those are the usual reasons that a Sending fails. That is why it was so hard to dismiss Lady Ginnem, Lord Jyscal, and Maester Seymour. As for love, I don't know. The Sending ritual is specifically designed to loosen love's bond enough that the living and dead can accept being sundered. When it fails, the Unsent becomes a fiend. I don't know why you haven't. But then, I don't know why Tidus is still here."

Auron stirred restlessly. "I just want to know what is best for her."

Tidus shook his and muttered, "What's there to wonder about?"

Torn, Yuna was still mulling it over when she suddenly noticed a mechanical hum and realized that the lift was coming up from below. Inexorably, the hatch cover retracted with a hiss. An erect figure robed in white stepped out onto the hull facing away from them. "Yuna's not here," the mage said, sounding tired. "This had better not be a prank, Rikku."

Auron stiffened. Yuna covered her mouth with one hand and clutched rapidly at his coat, whispering, "Stay!"

The sorceress turned at the sound. Yuna had to fight back tears as she watched the rare blaze of raw emotion sweep across the woman's face. Anger, wonder, terror...

Lulu hurtled towards him in three quick strides, throwing her arms around him as if trying to capture a dream in the last moment before waking. Auron's form did not turn to water or dissolve. He bent his head and met her kiss with all the force of an aeon plummeting from the sky. Yuna and Tidus shared a poignant glance.

"Pssst!" Rikku, peeking around the doorframe, beckoned frantically, barely able to contain herself. Grinning, Tidus scooped up the blanket, and he and Yuna discreetly stood and stole around the other way, whereupon Rikku seized both of them and yanked them into the lift. "Ha!" she crowed, as soon as they began to descend. "Am I good, or what? Stupid old grouch probably would've gone 'poof' again. Good work keeping him distracted!" Rikku and Tidus exchanged a gleeful high five.

"Oh, Rikku," Yuna chided fondly. Her eyes were still watering.

"What?" The Al Bhed peered at her with sudden suspicion. "_Vilg_. You're not going to have to Send him again, are you?"

Yuna shook her head emphatically. "Don't worry. I'd sooner face Yu Yevon and Vegnagun both at once than rouse the wrath of Lulu _and_ Sir Auron."


	7. Epilogue

_I will live with my sorrow, I will live my own life! I will defeat sorrow. I will stand my ground and be strong. I don't know when it will be, but someday, I will conquer it. And I will do it without... false hope. -- High Summoner Yuna_

* * *

Lulu had a few misgivings about bringing him to Guadosalam, but found to her relief that travellers' tales of the Farplane's instability were greatly exaggerated. To be sure, the improbable viewing platform had become even more precarious. The broad tongue of rock had unravelled into long stony filiaments like the web of a crazed spider, spiralling out into the golden haze in wild loops and arcs whose ends jutted in midair. The sky crawled with rose-colored lightning. Gusting winds, laced with a wild, maddening scent, endangered the unwary. Lulu had little to fear, however, having braved the ice spans of Gagazet and Sin's tumultuous fall. She was sorry now that she had put this visit off for so many years. The vast fields of firelike flowers were as breathtaking as ever, endless cataracts of water still roared their everlasting hymn to the sky, and pyreflies still whirled and sang with haunting beauty. 

Vidina wriggled in her arms and stretched his hands towards the wafting lights, giggling with delight. A rolling thunderclap barely troubled the boy; his mother had taught him early to love and respect the stormier side of nature's elements.

"Chappu-Chappu-Chappu!" he repeated enthusiastically.

"Yes, that's uncle Chappu." She kissed the back of his head and set him down with watchful care; he was getting too heavy to carry. Dropping neatly to one knee behind him, she laced her arms about him securely and rested her chin against his cheek.

"He has red hair like me and Daddy!"

"So he does." She wondered when had Chappu begun to resemble Tidus, instead of the other way around. Awash with a strange sense of melancholy, Lulu gazed at the two brothers' faces side by side. Both she had loved, Chappu with the hotblooded innocence of youth, Wakka with the understanding of a river for its bed. One had been a star streaking across her sky whose fall had made the nights colder. The other had been a rock to lean against, a steady presence whom she had taken for granted for so long that, when she finally opted for stability over fleeting passion, she had quite forgotten that nothing, not even Yevon, lasts forever.

Their ghostly images hung there, uncharacteristically motionless, beaming with blank smiles that showed no awareness of a child's laughter or a lover's somber query. In the face of their uncanny stillness, Lulu felt as if she were falling. The curiously intoxicating vista before her-- alien, otherworldly, beyond comprehension-- tugged at those sleeping strands of power within her slender frame that expressed themselves in flare and fireball, lightning and tidal surge. She felt an arrogant desire to cast her magic in this lifeless realm, trying to spark a glint of recognition on Wakka's unseeing bland face. She longed to leap out onto the shimmering golden mist as Tidus had once done and learn whose arms might catch her. Vidina's precious warm body pressed against her knees helped anchor her against such irrational urges. She began to understand why the Guado were discouraging people from coming here.

"Mama?" Vidina asked wonderingly. "Why don't they talk? Auron talks."

"Sir Auron is in our world. Spirits in our world have bodies, like Fiends do. Here, in the Farplane--" she nodded to the swirling lights, "everyone is thought-magic, like pyreflies. They don't need bodies any more, and they can hear each other's thoughts. But since we can't, they make a picture for us to see, so that we know they're listening." She hoped it was true.

"Magic." The boy cradled the word. "Hey, Dad? Mama and her friends killed all the raiders! Can you come back now?"

Her heart twisted. "Vidina--"

"Wait." The boy had his own share of imperious stubbornness. "I'm talkin' to Dad."

She nodded and fell silent, watching. There was a magic in children that neither she nor the High Summoner could rival.

Vidina folded his arms in an unconscious imitation of his mother and waited. "Guess not!" he said finally. "He likes being a spirit. Do they have blitz on da Farplane, Mama?"

"I think so." Lulu smiled. "If they didn't before, I'm sure they do now."

"Good." Vidina made another careless grab for a pyrefly. "Can we go now?"

"Yes." The sorceress straightened, fixing the brothers with a wan smile. "Wakka... Chappu... be well."

Perhaps someday she would have to ask Wakka's forgiveness, but she was tired of mourning, tired of being afraid to face the Farplane, tired of shutting doors in her heart and walking away without looking back. She prayed silently that she would have no more reasons to come here for a while. Scooping Vidina into her arms, Lulu turned and painstakingly retraced their steps along wispy paths of stone. It was slow going, and she suspected that this was one place in Spira where she was truly on her own.

"Mama?"

"Yes, sweetling?"

"Why does Auron stay? Didn't Yuna Send him?"

There it was, a question all Spira would soon be asking. "Yuna tried," she responded carefully. "It didn't work. Sometimes it's too hard for the dead to let go of our world, although that's very rare."

"Maybe," Vidina whispered, twining his fingers in her braids, "maybe it's because he likes you, Mama."

Her heart twisted. "Maybe."

"You like me too, right?"

"Oh, Vidina." She set him down before the shimmering blue portal leading back to Guadosalam, drawing him close. "I love you so much."

"Okay." Fearlessly jerking free of her arms, he skipped down the steps ahead of her, darting through the swirling blue mist with another burst of laughter.

Hurrying after, she was distracted from scolding him by the endearing sight that greeted her on the far side. Auron, sitting patiently at the foot of the staircase, had just flung out an arm to intercept him, and the boy had collapsed against his side giggling and wiggling. "Aww, let go!"

"You shouldn't run on stairs."

"Okay." Vidina kept squirming. "You know what? Aunt Rikku told me you're a Guardian. She said you fight better than Uncle Tidus."

"Probably." The swordsman glanced over his shoulder, searching for the boy's mother.

"Hey." Vidina pulled at his sleeve, eyes suddenly round and solemn. "Will you be Mama's Guardian?"

Auron's mouth twitched. "If Lulu wishes it."

Her eyes danced as she drew level with them. "I do," she said huskily.

"Then you can stay," Vidina announced. He crawled over the man's knee into his lap, stretching his arms around Auron's collar in a silent request to be carried.

Vision misting, Lulu settled beside the pair, embracing them. She furtively seized Auron's ponytail and murmured in his ear, "As long as it's understood that I am _your_ Guardian."

Arching an eyebrow at her over Vidina's mop of orange curls, Auron removed his glasses, folded them with quiet deliberation, and slipped them into her hand with a meaningful look that threatened to shatter every scrap of self-composure she possessed.

There was a blinding flash. Auron made an aborted movement towards his sword-hilt. Lulu looked up with a sigh to see Rikku bounding off with a gleeful grin, sphere-camera in hand.

* * *

_Note: Click my username, go to my website listed in my profile, and see my personal "fanart" page for an illustration. _

* * *

_-- The End --_


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